999 Episode 60 Star Fragments (7)

Context determines the meaning of a sentence.

What narrative has been built up to reach that sentence? What stories have contributed to each other?

I believed that Kim Dokja would understand the meaning hidden behind the sentences I was speaking.

"So, Kim Dokja, please protect this world."

Snowfield blinked at my words. Then, belatedly, he looked down.

Snowfield had realized. That the 'Kim Dokja' I had just asked for was not himself.

The 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』, which the third Kim Dokja had cut, swayed precariously.

I imagined what was happening inside the third's small head.

As my recording ability was exerted to its extreme, the third's imagination was stretching out.

The third had made a decision.

The world protected by the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, Jung Heewon, and Lee Hyunsung. The third one decided to protect that world together, and to restore the 'reality' of this world by mobilizing his imagination.

More than half of the pages of 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』 placed by the third one's bedside were now broken.

Nevertheless, the third one decided not to be curious about that story anymore. He decided to live in this reality created by that story, in the world he had endured with his family. He decided to accept it as his own life.

In fact, I, who had persuaded him, was also a little surprised. Perhaps it was because the third one's current decision was a choice that neither I nor Snowfield could have made.

Snowfield's eyes trembled violently. He, too, seemed greatly shaken by the fact that 'the Third Kim Dokja' had made this choice.

Tsutsutsutsu.

The vortex that had dominated the sky was gradually shrinking. From a distance, the sound of the 'Chimera Dragon' losing its power could be heard. The movements of the constellations, the 'White Flame Dragon of Lamentation', and the 'Drinking Demon', who had been fighting fierce battles nearby, also became noticeably sluggish.

"Ugh—"

And Snowfield and I, too, were slowly losing strength.

Snowfield said, glaring at me with a fierce look.

"Let go of my hand."

Snowfield was getting angry for the first time. I shook my head.

"No."

"Then."

A chill ran through Snowfield's eyes.

"This guy is going to die."

Snowfield's white hand gripped the Third Kim Dokja's head tightly. As the Third, who had been dreaming, frowned, the world that had been stabilizing began to shake once again. Snowfield was attempting to forcibly take the remaining fragment of the Third. The Third's soul, refusing to be absorbed, screamed.

I gripped the Third's hand tightly.

"Don't give up."

The legend I possessed flowed into the Third's hand. Subsequently, my story and Snowfield's legend clashed inside the Third.

A battle began over who would seize control of 'Kim Dokja'.

"You."

Snowfield's eyes widened as he confirmed my power. He seemed to have never imagined I would go this far. I grinned and said.

"If you want to absorb, try absorbing me too."

"Do you think I can't?"

As the stories of the absorbing side and the defending side clawed and tore apart each other's sentences, the Third's interior quickly became a battlefield. It seemed as though the Third's scream could be heard through the empty rift.

Ahhhhh.

But at this moment, there was no other way. Even the power of 'Snowfield Kim Dokja' was growing stronger in real time.

During the eight years I was away, he collected countless 'Kim Dokja fragments' scattered across the world and climbed from the bottom of the scenario all the way to the very top. Facing such a guy with a sheer volume of pure 'Kim Dokja fragments' was overwhelming.

That wasn't all. Even if I could handle him, if he were to inject a stronger story into the Third here and force it upon him, the Third's soul would shatter into pieces.

I needed time for the Great Sage Equal to Heaven and Jung Heewon to defeat their opponents and come to my aid.

I took a deep breath and used the power of 「Revision」 that I had been saving within me. The accumulated probability was sucked out in an instant, and the landscape of the world began to turn upside down.

The scenery turned into a monochrome landscape. Space-time began to slowly come to a halt.

In this landscape, the space-time coordinates of every being are fixed. To be precise, that was the case for everyone except me.

Enduring the probability from behind, I moved slowly. I utilized the story, that possessed resistance to probability, to the extreme to defy the backlash, and slowly reached out to grab Snowfield's wrist. Then, I carefully removed his hand from the Third's head.

Probability had tightened its grip around my neck as punishment for violating the world's rules, but for now, this was the best option.

The very moment I removed his hand from the Third...

I got goosebumps. Until now, in this colorless landscape—within the blanks of the sentences—only I could move. But Snowfield was looking at me.

"Yes, so this is that ability."

He was even speaking. I felt the balance of probability shift once again. Surprisingly, Snowfield was moving within this alternate dimension, exhibiting a resistance to probability as powerful as mine.

"Why are you so surprised? You weren't the only one capable of exerting power here."

The moment I heard him, something came to mind.

I shook my head.

"You aren't a 'writer'."

Nor did I sense the power of a 'recorder' from him.

"Right, it's not me."

Snowfield replied with a faint smile.

"Because I don't need to record myself."

That meant someone was recording Snowfield's actions on his behalf. A 'recorder' capable of moving him within this landscape while rejecting the influence of my skills.

I recalled the modifiers of several great recorders in my mind. But strangely enough, it didn't seem like they would be able to use such power.

Snowfield asked.

"■■-ah, you really don't know?"

An ominous thought ran through my mind.

Actually, I knew. A recorder who could move him within this landscape and stand against me.

There was only one such 'writer.' The most outstanding writer I knew, and my mentor.

"It doesn't matter."

I bit my lip tightly and threw a punch at him. In a movement as slow as a dream, my fist grazed his cheek.

Snowfield asked.

"So you want to fight?"

As if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time, Snowfield also extended his fist toward me. A fist as slow as mine. It was an attack that was impossible to miss—if I hadn't dodged it, I would have had no excuse even if I were scolded for three nights and four days by my transcendent masters.

Nevertheless, dodging that attack was not easy. Because my body was moving slowly, too.

"Ugh."

A fist that narrowly grazed my nose. I immediately grabbed his arm and attempted a throw. But for some reason, his body did not move.

Snowfield asked me, looking bewildered.

"Are you an idiot?"

Snowfield said, gripping my neck tightly from behind.

"There's no way a throw would work with our strength alone."

"I thought it would work because you're light."

Muttering curses under my breath, I barely managed to break free from his chokehold.

Since our bodies were sluggish, a crude battle of wits ensued. We tried desperately to trip each other, or waited for an opening to land a punch on each other's torsos.

"That kind of punch doesn't hurt."

"Who are you to say that?"

However, even if those cotton candy-like punches luckily landed on each other, they couldn't inflict a fatal wound.

Small cuts began piling up on our faces, and our stamina, rapidly depleted just as we had defied all logic, began to threaten us.

Gasping for breath, Snowfield and I threw punches at each other again and again. How long did we throw punches like that? After taking another blow each, we both knelt down almost simultaneously. It wasn't because it hurt. It was because we were exhausted.

Snowfield spoke.

"You've gotten quite strong."

I didn't think that was something to say while exchanging punches like cotton candy, but Snowfield was smiling at me. It was a smile that seemed to say he was proud of myself, or perhaps to record it.

"At first, you were a guy who couldn't even catch a single Ground Dog."

"Are you underestimating Ground Dogs? If you were in my shoes, you would have had a hard time too."

"Yeah. It is hard to catch them."

We looked at each other for a moment and chuckled. Come to think of it, we had both now become Kim Dokjas who had gone through the scenarios.

I asked.

"What were the scenarios like when you experienced it firsthand?"

"It wasn't easy."

"It looked easy when you were just watching, didn't it?"

"Honestly, it was."

It felt strange to be having this conversation with 'Snowfield Kim Dokja'.

He and I were both 49% Kim Dokjas.

We were Kim Dokjas born without going through the scenario, thanks to the sacrifice of 51%.

"There is no such thing as an easy story anywhere."

I entered the 41st round and experienced a scenario for the first time, and Snowfield, too, relinquished his position to enter the 41st round and carry out the scenario.

"Of course. There is no easy story."

We walked the path that 51% of Kim Dokja walked, each in our own way. And now we are here.

"Give up."

I said, looking at Snowfield.

"No matter how hard you try, we cannot harm each other here."

Instead of responding to my words, Snowfield looked around at the colorless landscape. A world where everything stood still. A landscape where the people who were fighting, and the stars that were watching us, had all come to a standstill. An unrecorded void.

In this colorless world, perhaps resembling his 'snowfield', Snowfield spoke with an infinitely serene face.

"I suppose so."

The moment I heard those words, I realized something belatedly.

Nevertheless, Snowfield willingly went along with this story. Perhaps he knew all along.

The one and only Kim Dokja that remains.

The story that will determine the conclusion of the 41st round.

"■■-ah, you can't win."

"You won't know until you get to the end."

Snowfield shook his head and gazed somewhere. 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』, now more than half gone, was fluttering there.

"There are things you can know without reading to the end."

That's right. Both he and I knew the ending of that story.

"No, there are stories we don't know even after reading to the end."

We were currently living a kind of side story. Living through a void not properly described in the main story, we were living a story where only the ending remained.

What was written was merely a trace of the ending of the 41st round. Neither the process leading to that ending nor its interpretation had been determined.

Snowfield's gaze turned sad as he looked at me.

"I've been watching you for a long time."

"Why?"

"Because I liked your story."

"And now?"

Snowfield didn't answer.

I paused for a moment before asking.

"Kim Dokja."

"Yes."

"Did you transmigrate me in this world?"

It was a question I had pondered for a very long time.

"Are you the one who threw me in the 41st round and made me carry out all these scenarios?"

At first, I thought it was Asmodeus's doing. However, as time passed, I came to realize that this miracle was not something Asmodeus could cause alone.

Furthermore, Asmodeus revealed that there were clearly beings participating in this plan besides himself. And as far as I knew, there were only a few multidimensional beings capable of wielding such a miracle.

Snowfield asked, wearing an enigmatic smile.

"If so?"

I looked up at the sky. The colorless landscape I had created was slowly crumbling. The power of the skill was running out.

Snowfield asked again.

"Do you resent me?"

If the me of the past had heard this question, I would have answered yes. I would have demanded to know why it had to be me, and why I was made to suffer such a tragedy.

I slowly lowered my head and gazed at Snowfield.

"Thank you."

Snowfield's eyes wavered faintly as he looked at me.

These were events I would never experience again. There was profound sorrow and terrible despair. Yet, having survived this world, there was a landscape I could see.

Tsutsutsu, the colorless landscape shattered. Taking advantage of Snowfield's momentary hesitation, I shoved his body hard. It was a strength of 1, but it was enough force to bring that limp body down. I climbed on top of him and assumed the pounding position. Even though the tide had completely turned in my favor, Snowfield remained calm.

"You can't beat me."

Snowfield said, and I nodded in response.

"Normally, that would be the case."

Surely, as of this moment, the amount of 'Kim Dokja fragments' he possesses must be greater than mine. Since he has wielded the power of 'Kim Dokja' for much longer than I have, his proficiency in handling that power is naturally higher than mine.

Nevertheless, I punched him straight into the chest. I felt the sentences written on the guy's chest sticking to my fist.

"If you are the 'Snowfield Kim Dokja' I remember, I would surely lose. But—"

I thought of the stars that had entered this world. I thought of Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, and Odin.

Then what about 'Snowfield'?

"You didn't come here with 'all your stories', did you?"

At my words, Snowfield's eyes visibly wavered.

"You didn't go 'missing' completely like me, right?"

At first, I was unsure, but now I knew for sure. Perhaps it was a truth that only I, his brother, could sense.

He relinquished his status from the heavens and descended to enter the world of scenarios. And from the very beginning, he cleared every scenario, rebuilding his own narrative anew.

Nevertheless, at this very moment of entering the world of the 'Third', he could not completely abandon his own narrative.

I was bound to win this fight. The reason was simple.

"You left 'my story' out there, right?"